First time I interacted with a computer, I was about 10. I remember playing solitaire, pinball, and trying to install Street Fighter using floppy disks. For the next 15 years, I mainly used computers to play games, explore social media, and complete some schoolwork. I didn’t really see myself as someone particularly good with computers and I didn’t understand the growth and effects that software was having on the world.
My first experience writing code was during my first undergraduate degree. We used MATLAB to write some scripts to solve finite element matrix equations and create graphs. After graduation, I got a job as a manufacturing engineer and didn’t use code. The main tool that we used was Excel. Excel is an excellent tool to analyze and display data at a small scale. Through online research, I started learning to create VBA modules to automate some of the actions in Excel. This opened my eyes to the potential benefits that coding could have in my specific situation. It also made me realize that software and coding had permeated every aspect of my life. The phone, the email, the car, social media, entertainment and many other aspects which were taking a larger share of my time. Software and the internet had grown tremendously and I knew very little about how it worked. I decided to apply to OSU’s post-bacc CS program because I enjoy learning and figuring out how the world around me works.
I am near the end of the program and I have a much better frame to understand the world around me but I have also realized how deep and wide the tech industry has become and how little I know.
